I started reading this for the first time in late 2009 and I got about 4/5 of the way through it and never finished it....since I can't stand having something incomplete I decided that it is finally time to finish the book...I decided that after 3+ years the only sensible thing to do is start over....I'm now in chapter 9 (of 27 so I'm about 1/3 of the way through).....

You know....it is a little sad that Dracula has become such a big, iconic character...because this entire story is a mystery story...the mystery is 'what's the deal with Dracula, what are these weird powers he has, how has he lived so long, what the hell is the deal with the bite on Lucy's neck etc etc etc' the solution to the mystery is that Dracula is a vampire....I appears that this fact was originally supposed to be something of a shocking revelation at the time the book was originally published....

But Dracula has become such an iconic character that it is basically impossible for anyone to read this book not knowing that he is a vampire....any sense of mystery is pretty much impossible to sustain.....

It's still an excellent work of gothic horror....but I do wish that I could somehow eliminate my knowledge of the 'shocking twist' from my mind so that I could have the same experience as the original readers

From a movie standpoint, that was the way things were with me and Psycho.

I can't imagine what it was like for audiences when they first found out what the deal was with Norman Bates and his mom.

The real twisty it's Psycho is that the alleged 'star' of the movie, Janet Leigh, dies in the first half hour and that story t turns or to not be about her at all. Imagine doing that today, take one of the biggest stars working in Hollywood, make the entire advertising campaign new about about that actor and then kill him off previously on the first scene.Would never happen. Imagine if Julia Roberts died during the first half hour of 'Erin Brockavich'....in addition to making it a much better movie it would be shocking to learn that the person who promoted as the star is barely even in the movie.

A shock, in my case.

GKC

I finished chapter 15, I could easily finish the entire book tonight if I really wanted to....but I think I need to stop reading....otherwise I'm likely to spend all night dreaming about the book.....and that won't make for a pleasant night's sleep.

My parents made that comparison with Steven Seagal in Executive Decision.

Which is how Bram Stoker came up with the plot. Allegedly, he had nightmares after eating some bad crab for supper one night.

I've never heard that.....

Quick google

http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/dracula.html

Finished it today, I am definitely going to have to read this again....preferably around Halloween

Another that I like to re-read is Frankenstein.

This book makes my top five favorite novels list. It is one I re-read almost every year, which given that my job entails reading, says a lot. I have read a lot of Stoker's other fiction, but nothing comes close, not even "The Jewel of the Seven Stars".

As someone else said: "You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you..."